Here’s the first rule I have when it comes to showing folks how to write stand-up comedy material:

Don’t try to “write” anything. Weird, huh?

I say that because before you “write” anything, you need to have a good idea of what you want to talk about on stage. This is probably the most important step that is largely overlooked by most people as they sit down and attempt to write something “funny” from thin air that may or may not be funny from an audience perspective.

The second rule I have is this:

Don’t try to create something “funny” that isn’t really funny, fascinating, aggravating or interesting to you in the first place. Your unique sense of humor is best engaged when you are talking about issues, ideas, opinions, observations and experiences that have some sort of emotional connection to and that you like to talk about in everyday conversation.

As you have probably observed already, comedians usually talk about very common and easily recognized topics. So, there’s no need to be slick when it comes to what you want to talk about because…

Virtually every possible topic has been done by a comedian somewhere. It’s not the topic that makes a comedian unique, it is the personal and unique sense of humor that a comedian uses that makes a topic unique to them, coupled with their own unique delivery style (which you DON’T have to fabricate a unique delivery style either—you have it already).

So, in your quest to learn how to write stand-up comedy, it seems to me that the very first step is to identify broad topics that you already like to talk about.

If you are familiar with the Killer Stand-up Comedy System, then you already know that “jokes” are mere fragments of stand-up material. I show folks how to work on developing 3+ minute topics because the longer you can stay on any particular topic, the “set-up” is already established early in the bit, causing you to use less words to get to the punchlines in the rest of your material about that topic.

If you try to write “jokes”, you are having to “reset-up” after every 1-3 jokes—it’s like starting over with a crystal clear and concise set-ups every time (which can be challenging for sure).

Personally, I won’t spend one minute trying to write a “joke”—not when working on an entire topic is far easier and I can have much more comedy material in a very short period of time.

So, let’s assume you have selected a number of topics that you would like to talk about on stage. That should be pretty easy, since there’s no requirement for this information to be funny at this point.

Now, I’m going to change the terminology just a bit to better help you understand how to write stand-up comedy material from a bulk comedy material perspective.

Note: This article is one of 7 password protected articles included in the Comedy Writing Starter Package. For access details, click here.

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Of course there is still much you can do when it comes to expanding, editing and tightening your stand-up comedy material.

But what I have just described is a mere snapshot of how to easily develop topic based stand-up comedy material using the Killer Stand-up Comedy System that is personal AND accurately reflects your unique sense of humor.

So, if you wanted to know to write stand-up comedy—that’s how you do it in minutes instead of months without having to write “jokes”.

Cheers,
Steve Roye
The Professor of Funny for Money

About the Author/Founder of the SCP Blog


Steve Roye is the author of the Killer Stand-up Comedy System and is a globally recognized expert in the field of stand-up comedy material development and presentation strategies -- for entertainers as well as speaking professionals.

Please check out the Featured Articles page for direct links to articles on this blog for pro comedians, comedy entertainers, and speaking professionals.

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